The Bank of France confirmed yesterday something that had been brewing in silence for a long time: he has withdrawn every last gold bar he had stored in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve. An operation that normally could have lasted two decades but has suddenly accelerated. The trigger has its own name: Donald Trump.
What initially began as a technical operation to update its gold reserves, with the latest movements of the US against its European allies, including France, has become the first major geopolitical movement that has left half of Europe looking at each other. Furthermore, the play has left them with more money than they had.
The key is to sell at the right time and place. The first thing to understand is that France did not charter any plane loaded with gold to bring it back to Europe. Instead of physically moving the bullion, the Bank of France made a smarter decision. As the bank explained in a statementbetween July 2025 and January 2026, they have been selling the 129 tons of old gold that was stored in the New York Federal Reserve in the North American gold market.
In this way, the French have taken advantage of higher gold prices at historic highs. With these income, France has been purchasing gold bars that met the new higher quality standard in the European market, which registered more contained prices, to store those bars directly in its vaults in Paris.
The operation was completed in 26 different transactions and generated extraordinary income of 11 billion euros for the French central bank. A result that transformed the 7.7 billion euros in losses that it registered in 2024, into a net profit of 8.1 billion of euros in 2025.
Why was there European gold in the US? The history of this gold in New York goes back at the end of World War II. After the conflict, the dollar became the axis of international trade and having reserves in New York allowed countries to sell them quickly and obtain currency to facilitate payments in global trade. Furthermore, with the Cold War raging and the USSR looming, many European governments preferred their gold reserves to be kept in distant New York rather than in Paris or London, protecting their treasury from hypothetical invasions Russian.
A first major reduction of that gold reserve came in the sixties, when De Gaulle made the decision to repatriate part of the reserves French and other countries imitated it. But they didn’t take everything. France still maintained 5% of its total reserves on the other side of the Atlantic, a figure that may seem small but is equivalent to a mountain of ingots. With the latest move, France now concentrates all of its 2,437 tons in Paris, becoming the world’s fourth largest holder of gold.
The spark that has ignited Europe. This same year It has been known that India has already repatriated 274 tons of gold since 2023, and currently around two-thirds of its total 880.8 tons are in national territory, driven by geopolitical risks and the need for greater control and liquidity. From OMFIF they point out that the location of gold storage has once again become a priority for central banks, especially since Russian assets deposited in third countries were seized following the invasion of Ukraine.
However, the spark that has ignited the machinery of repatriation of European gold has been the erratic attitude of Donald Trump. His attacks public to Jerome Powell and its repeated attempts to interfere in monetary policy have generated a growing concern between European central banks over who really controls the institutions that custody their gold.
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Germany and Italy: the next ones in the spotlight. Following France’s move, attention has turned to the central banks of Germany and Italy, the two countries with larger gold reserves on American soil. Germany preserves 1,236 tons in the vaults of New York, 37% of its total reserves, while Italy has 1,053 tons there, 43% of the total. Together, both countries accumulate the equivalent of $245 billion in bullion in New York.
Michael Jäger, Vice President of the German Taxpayers’ Federation (Bund der Steuerzahler) and President of the European Taxpayers Association (TAE) declared that “Trump’s unpredictability and his relentless pursuit of revenue means our gold is no longer safe in the Federal Reserve vaults. What happens if the provocation over Greenland continues? The risk that the Bundesbank will not be able to access its gold is increasing. That is why it should repatriate its reserves.” For now, neither country has announced an official decision on the future of its gold in the US.
Image | Unsplash (Samuel Regan-Asante, Scottsdale Mint)
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The news
France has taken all its gold from the US: it has gained from the transfer
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Xataka
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Ruben Andres
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